Seeing Ghosts
by LianatheWingedDrummer16
Summary: Conflict leads to pain. Pain leads to separation. Separation leads to forever seeing remnants of what once was. OneShot.


**Why, hello there, inspiration! Nice to see you too. **

** Anyways, this just hit... A short and very angsty drabble that surprisingly doesn't involve Norton as the main character. I'd consider it a warm-up of sorts...?**

**I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

Haunted by ghosts.

He's been haunted before, oh yes, hallucinated about his impending death from a woman he thought he loved.

But this is an entirely different haunting.

It's not bad; he's not being strangled or choked as someone attempts to shove a needle through his cornea, but this just hurts so much more, somehow. It's a horrible internal ache that makes him sometimes just want to lie down on his bed and stare at the ceiling, counting the ins and outs of his breathing because it's the easiest way to deal with pain.

If there's anything Isaac Clarke has learned during his life that some people would call hell, it's that love is a vicious motherfucker.

Falling in love with someone was the equivalent of walking head-on into air traffic - while you fall down and down and down, there's a definite possibility that you'll hit a ton of shuttles and maybe even lose an arm or a leg, and then you keep going until you hit the real and very hard ground.

He doesn't know what's up or down anymore. He's drowning in a sea of memories and love and regrets, and he just wishes that things could go back to the wonderful concrete pattern that they were before, when life was predictable and he could accept that.

The worst thing is that he used to be tough. He used to be a badass who survived the Ishimura, and the Sprawl, and endless hordes of Necromorphs plus the deceptive illusion of his beloved and deceased Nicole, but he's lost two important people whom he'd treasured and what if that makes him weak? Is it okay to maybe soften a little, fracture his diamond shell because Ellie has left him?

He hopes he's still every bit as tough, hopes he's still strong enough to overcome any obstacles that the universe throws at him.

But he didn't want to go fight Necromorphs, so has he lost that ever admirable quality?

It's a terrifying prospect and he refuses to dwell on it any longer.

But as soon as he soothes that cut, another one opens up.

She's there - Ellie's there - in every brunette he sees, in every capital E, in every beautiful girl on those godforsaken Peng commercials - she's been a part of his life that he depended on for so long, and losing her has taken its toll. It doesn't take much to bring back a deluge of golden and warm and lovely memories of his time with her, those treasures moments forever tucked away in the diamond cage of his heart, and as soon as his weary eyes are filled with those images it feels like he's been speared right through the center of his chest.

It only takes one song on the radio that he remembers and his mind plays out a vision of them dancing together, her soft and sweet voice delicately singing out the lyrics in his ears as she leans into his chest, her gleaming chestnut brown hair tickling his chin, making his heart ache.

It only takes one glance into the mirror for him to see her gorgeous green and blue eyes sparkling at him, for his memory to dredge up those perfect lips curving into a breathtaking smile as her arm wraps around his neck and she leans in close.

That's all it takes for him to see ghosts, and he can't stop missing her and yearning for her - as horribly embarrassing as it is - any more than he can stop loving her.

* * *

She left to do what she felt was her duty. But now, she wants to head back to New Horizons to continue what her heart is screaming at her is right.

Every day, Ellie finds herself wondering if her perception of right and wrong has been skewed ever since she fell in love. Has it been changed, transformed, as much as her personality?

Before love she was hardcore, taking on Slashers and Leapers by herself with single shots. Before love she lost an eye but never gave up.

Yet afterwards is a completely different story.

Love made her desperate, desperate for that warm and full feeling that being needed and loved gave her. She craved it like a drug, and now, comparing herself in the present to herself in the past, she can really say love has softened her up.

She had never been one to go on dates and hold hands and giggle girlishly while sitting through a romantic comedy on the holovid, but she now she feels like a completely unrecognizable girl. Work used to be her priority; saving the world had been, but she finds herself dwelling on the glorious and rose-tinted past of her first love.

She misses Isaac more than she can admit to herself, even inside. She sees him everywhere, at the most unrelated of times and at the oddest moments.

Sometimes Robert kisses her, and it's too many times to count that his blue eyes morph into the ones she's stared into so many times, that his unforgiving arms melt into the soft cradle that she loves and misses so much. It doesn't take much for his golden hair to darken into short salt-and-pepper hair in her imagination, and her lips always stop moving against his as her heart breaks over and over again and hot tears prick at her eyes, because the man who's holding her and calling her "his" isn't the man she wants.

It's impossible to deny. He's always there, in every soft whisper Robert's lips utter, in every comforting shadow cast under a stark light. He's in every sentence spoken aloud, her brain automatically making those god damn connections to the engineer she's given her heart to. It would be easier to tear her own throat out and let someone stab out her other eye than to forget about Isaac, to forget all the times he's held her when her stone composure slipped and she cried under the frightening pressure of dreams turned nightmares.

She's heard of the phrase "seeing ghosts," but not until now has her heart truly grasped the meaning.

He's a ghost, all right. A herald of a past filled with good memories, a representative of the first time her heart ever really belonged to someone.

A reminder of true love, and what she's taken that to mean, carefully tucking away the frayed edges of her shattered soul under a flawless visage because true love means that she can't stop loving him even if she tries.

He walks in her dreams. She can always feel him there, because she'd been accustomed to his presence, and sometimes when she's asleep she feels as though she can reach out and touch him because he's right there, goddammit, right there, but he fades to smoke even though she can hear him calling her name.

"Ellie, where are you?"

Every morning she startles awake, frustrated because he becomes a little clearer with each step she takes. And then -

He's gone, and there's nothing she can do when he's thousands of miles away and she's here with Robert.

A tear leaks out in her pent-up frustration and loneliness and heartbrokenness, dripping into the sink as she grips the stainless steel, knuckles white.

Over her shoulder, in the mirror, Robert stands there passively, as though he doesn't noticed the absolutely boiling conflict inside her. He leans casually against the doorframe, and asks, "You ready to keep going?"

She grits her teeth against the urge to whirl and stomp out of there, instead drawing a deep breath through her clenched jaw, watching her cheeks redden and her eyes fill with tears.

But she has a mission to complete, and reluctantly she drags herself away, trying not to flinch from the wrong feeling of Robert's arm around her shoulders.

She looks back in the mirror one last time.

In her imagination, the arm resting on her shoulders isn't Robert's, but Isaac's.

**And there we go. **

**Review? It's a lot better than seeing a bunch of ambiguous hits and no comments or feedback. **


End file.
